Musica e quadrivio nelle laudes musicae del Quattrocento

In the 15th century, the commendation of music (laus musicae) was one of the rare opportunities for music theoreticians and humanists to confront the same issue, that is the epistemological conception of music. It is therefore interesting to define similarities and differences between music theory and humanae litterae through the analysis of a corpus of laudes gathered from treatises and academic prolusions. At first, this contribution presents a series of commendations of more traditional style and contents, such as that by the theoretician Nicolaus Burtius and those by the humanists Battista Guarino, Paolo Cortesi, and Filippo Beroaldo. Then, it discusses to what degree the laudes of Sassolo da Prato, Johannes Gallicus, and Bartolomé Ramis de Pareja reflect the reformist attitude of these authors in terms of music pedagogy. Finally, it retraces the steps of the recovery of the Greek music theory in the Latin West – a process that can be documented through the commendations of music by Giorgio Valla, Poliziano, and Gaffurio.